


Call in the Cavalry

by tuppenny



Series: Growing Together [10]
Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M, References to Depression, References to Sex, one curse word (p sure there's only one)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-30
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 20:24:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14143854
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tuppenny/pseuds/tuppenny
Summary: Katherine will do whatever it takes to get the scoop on a big story. Jack won't let her do this alone.





	Call in the Cavalry

**Author's Note:**

  * For [WritingToKeepMySanity](https://archiveofourown.org/users/WritingToKeepMySanity/gifts).



> From a prompt: “If we get caught I’m blaming you”
> 
> Ellie is 22 months old in this

**January 1911**

Katherine was holding her breath in the hallway, standing behind Jack, hoping he was almost done. She wasn’t going to say as much to him, of course; she knew it was easier for him to pick locks when it was quiet enough for him to hear the tumblers click.

“Got it,” he said, his voice low as he turned the knob and pushed the door inwards.

“Thank heavens,” she said, entering the small office and starting to rummage around. “I really wish you’d teach me to do that, you know,” she added, opening drawers and rifling through their contents.

“I know,” he said, scanning the bookshelves. “But if I taught you how, then you’d go off and do these crazy things without me, and there’s no way I’m letting you do that. It’s bad enough you do this stuff at all,” he said, crouching down to read the titles on the lowest shelves, “But you doing this alone? No way. I need ta be able ta keep an eye on you when you get into spots like this, macushla. Couldn’t sleep at night otherwise.”

“Mmm,” she hummed, not wanting to unpack that statement right now. “Aha!” She said abruptly, yanking a small spiral-bound notepad out of a cleverly hidden compartment that she’d crawled under the desk to find. “The ledger!”

“Do we have to take it, Ace?” Jack asked, staring nervously at the evidence in her hands. “Couldn’t we just… tell the bulls it’s here? Or do what Spot said an’ tip ‘em off to somethin’ we plant that’s bad enough ta land Murphy in the pen?”

“You can’t seriously be telling me you trust the cops to do their jobs properly?” Katherine said, slipping the notebook down her blouse. “And even if we  _had_  brought something illegal along with us, no, we are not going to frame someone! Not even for a good cause,” she added, seeing the look on Jack’s face. “Come on, let’s go.”

“ **If we get caught, I’m blaming you**?” Jack said, loosening his checked tie and mussing his hair.

“That’s the plan, yes,” Katherine agreed.

“Okay,” he said, flipping the lock on the door and waiting for Katherine to exit into the hallway before pulling it shut behind them and grabbing for her hand.

“Hey!” A scratchy voice echoed down the corridor, clearly directed at Jack and Katherine. “Whaddya think you’s doin’, huh? ‘S private prop’ty back in ‘ere!”

“Jest lookin’ f’r somewheres quiet so’s the lady here c’n entertain me proper-like f’r a go-around or two,” Jack said, pitching his voice lower than usual. “Ya gots a room ya c’n spare, buddy? She’s got some real good tricks, this ‘un, an’ I don’t wanna be disturbed in the middle of ‘em.”

“Clear out,” the other man said, coming into view and glaring at Jack and Katherine. “You’s gotta pay in advance if ya wants a room, an’ this here room ain’t that kinda room, anyway. Go find you an alleyway or somethin’, oughta be more your price range.”

“Sorry, sorry,” Jack said, holding his hands up but keeping his face lowered and sticking to the shadows as much as possible. “We’s on our way out. Di’n’t mean no harm, boss. Sorry.”

He stumbled a little in order to shove Katherine behind him and then continued to bow and scrape his way down the corridor, slowly moving them away from the angry bruiser in the bowler hat. As soon as they were far enough down the hallway, they turned and ran out into the club they’d come from, slowing up just in time to look normal. Katherine walked a little quicker than Jack as they navigated around overcrowded tables and drunk patrons and spilled their way out onto the street, putting enough distance between them to cast doubt on whether or not they were actually together.

Once they’d made it to the sidewalk, they slipped into the adjoining alleyway, where Jack lifted up a wooden crate to exchange the battered jacket he was wearing for his usual charcoal woolen coat. Then he yanked off his hideous tie, stuffed it into a pocket, and jammed his newsie cap on his head. Meanwhile, Katherine had loosed her hair from its tight bun, slipped off the light blue skirt she’d been wearing over her dress, pulled her own scarlet melton coat out from under the wooden crate, and settled her fashionable tam-o-shanter on her head.

“Ready?” Jack said gruffly, holding his arm out for her. Katherine nodded, gripped his elbow, and the two of them walked briskly away from the club and its seedy back rooms, headed towards cleaner streets and home.

Once they’d made it up into their cozy little apartment, Jack slammed the door behind them, bolted it shut, and rounded on Katherine. “We  _cannot_ do things like that anymore, Katherine. We nearly got made!”

“We didn’t, though,” she said, shucking off her winter wear.

“It was sheer luck that we didn’t!” He yelled, grabbing her wrists and forcing her to look at him. “Thirty seconds more and we’d've been done for, Ace!”

“It was fine, Jack,” she said tightly, twisting her wrists to break his grip. “We got what we needed, they’ll never recognize us, and we got out just fine.”

“That ain’t the  _point_ ,” Jack growled, taking his cap off and hurling it angrily to the ground. “We have a  _child_  now, Ace, a child what  _needs_  us! She coulda been  _orphaned_ t’night, an’ all f’r what? Ta satisfy your need f’r excitement? Your curiosity? Your  _ego_?”

Katherine threw her own hat on the floor. “To make this city a better place! To let her grow up somewhere men like Murphy don’t run the show! Someone’s got to do the hard work around here, Jack, and I don’t exactly see anyone else lining up!”

“Someone’s gotta do it, sure, but it ain’t gotta be you an’ me! We both of us made this city better back when we was just kids—now it’s someone else’s turn!” His eyes flashed and he clenched his fists, keeping them braced against his sides. “Why I always gotta be the one makin’ this city better, huh? When’s it gonna do somethin’ f’r  _me_  f’r a change? I don’t owe this city nothin’, Ace—I don’t owe it my wife, my happiness, or myself, an’ I sure as  _hell_  don’t owe it my  _child!”_

Katherine stood there, nostrils flared, biting on her bottom lip and trying not to cry.

Jack rolled his shoulders and narrowed his eyes. “Maybe I don’t mean enough ta you ta keep ya from takin’ dumb risks, Katherine; maybe you could live with breakin’ my heart. If that’s the case, then okay, fine. That’s your call. But I ain’t the only one you gotta think about here, Katherine—you are a  _mother,_  for heaven’s sakes! Ellie  _needs_ you. She needs you a lot more urgently than this damn city does, an’ I can’t let ya go runnin’ inta things like ya did t’night, not when you’s got a little girl waitin’ for ya at home. I thought I could,” He said, shaking his head, his voice gruff. “I thought if I came along ta make sure it was all safe then I could live with it, but I can’t. It ain’t never gonna be safe, an’ it ain’t never gonna be worth it.” He took a step closer to her and looked her dead in the eyes. “It’s gotta stop, Katherine. Now. Tonight was the last time. Swear to me.”

Katherine sagged, then sank slowly to the floor, her face in her hands. “I’m pregnant,” she mumbled.

“You _what?”_  Jack blurted, sinking down in front of her and pulling her hands into his.

“I’m pregnant,” she said, meeting his eyes this time.

“ _How?”_  Jack asked, his eyes wide.

She laughed bitterly. “The usual way,” she said, quirking her lips up at his obvious exasperation with her answer. “You remember that night last month we had Ellie go sleep at my parents’?”

Jack nodded slowly, and then the realization dawned on his face.  _“Oh.”_  He blinked. “But… but that was just once! It took months of trying for us to get Ellie, how could just the one time have…” Katherine shrugged, and Jack dragged one hand down his cheek. “Wow,” he said. “Wow.” Then he grinned, his entire face lighting up like a storefront at Christmas. “This is wonderful news, darlin’!” He hugged her fiercely, gripping her so hard that she felt the exact moment when his mood shifted.

He let out a cry and pushed her roughly back, his face black with anger. “What the hell were you  _thinking,_ going into a situation like that while pregnant? Now you have  _two_  babies to think about, Ace—you hafta stop this daredevil idiocy!”

She shuddered. “I’m going to be trapped again,” she said, closing her eyes. “I’m going to be stuck in this tiny apartment for months on end again—this time with a toddler—, and then I’m going to lose my job again, and then once I have the baby I… I’m going to lose my mind again, too.” She bent her head and felt a cold wave of fear wash over her. “Only this time around I’ll have to take care of myself and a baby  _and_  Ellie while wishing I were dead, and I have no idea how I’ll do that.”

She heard him suck in a breath. “You… you wished you were dead?”

She nodded, glad her eyes were already closed. She didn’t want to see the disappointment and revulsion on his face.

“I didn’t know that,” he said softly, and she jerked slightly at the unexpected sensation of his calloused fingers stroking her cheek. “I’m sorry, love. I… I’m so sorry. I didn’t realize how alone you felt. I didn’t know.”

She nodded again, relaxing into him as he pulled her in for another hug, this one tender and comforting, this one a hug just for her instead of a hug for their second child.

Jack’s voice was calm and careful as he tried to signal to her that he loved her no matter what. “I thought you wanted another kid?”

“I did,” she said, doing her best not to sound petulant. “I do. I just… I just wasn’t ready yet.” He nodded, his chin rubbing against the top of her head.  _Okay, he didn’t hate you for that, so… let’s go for the next bit, Katherine. Come on._  “And… I’m scared, Jack. I’m just… I’m so scared of what comes next. I know what it’s like, now, and I… I don’t know if I’m strong enough for it.” Her hands tightened involuntarily around him.

“It nearly killed me the first time,” she said, finally confessing something she’d kept hidden for years. “We never really talked about how low I got those first few months after Ellie was born, but I… It was… Well.” Maybe she wasn’t ready to confess everything, after all. He knew how darkness worked; he could make his own assumptions about the state of mind necessary to make a mother stop caring for her daughter and have to leave home. 

She swallowed and brought things back to the present. “I know tonight was stupid, Jack. I know tonight was wrong. Even while we were doing it, even while I was having the time of my life, half of my heart was screaming at me for doing something like this when I have Ellie and you and… and this new baby to think about.”

He sighed, and she knew then that that admission was all he’d wanted from her. He hadn’t wanted her to apologize, exactly; he’d just wanted some reassurance that she did care, that she did want their family, that she wasn’t constantly regretting her choice to build a life with him. She felt sick as that realization washed over her. Oh, shit, she’d done it again. She’d done it again, and she hadn’t even meant to.  _Good work, Katherine; your husband thinks you hate your life and resent your family because you’re such a mess that he can’t see how you’d possibly want him._  She bit back a sob and buried her head deeper into his shoulder. He was so  _good,_ he was too good for her, he always had been, and she hated herself for always making him doubt that.

“I love you, Jack!” She burst out. “I love you more than words can say, and I love Ellie, and I love our life together. I love our family. You two are the best things to ever happen to me, and I can’t… I’d never… Oh, Jackie, oh, my love, I… I don’t deserve you!” she said, and this time she did start to cry.

“Macushla,” he said softly, starting to stroke her hair. She must be rattled if she’d started to talk about ‘deserving’ him—he thought they’d both gotten over that claptrap years ago. “Don’t you start with that ‘deserving’ nonsense. You know that ain’t how it works. An’ darlin’—I know you love us. I know. I see it in the way you read stories to our baby. I see it in the way you look at me when you wake up in the morning. I feel it in the touch of your hands, I hear it in the tone of your voice, an’ I know it every second of every minute of every day, whether you’re with me or not. I love you, you love me, an’ we both love Ellie more’n meat loves salt.”

She laughed weakly and nodded against him. “Yes,” she said, her voice wobbly. “I just… I wanted one last adventure, one last thing just for me, before this baby comes and takes it all away. Again.  _Again.”_  She heaved a broken sob and cried into his shoulder, wishing she were the sort of woman who could rejoice unreservedly in such good fortune instead of immediately leaping ahead to worry about just how deep and dark this pregnancy would take her. But she wasn’t. This was going to be hard, it was going to be  _so_ hard, and she needed to grieve the loss of her old life before she could rejoice at the inevitable beauty of the new.

“It ain’t gonna be like that this time around,” Jack said hotly. “I swear it. You ain’t gonna be so alone this time around. I’m gonna make sure of it.”

She couldn’t help it; she laughed. “It’s just how it is,” she said, sitting back on her heels. She loved him, she did, but he had no idea. She kissed his nose and smiled sadly. “There’s nothing to be done.”

He grabbed her shoulders. “That’s not true,” he insisted. “This’ll be better. I’ll make it better if it kills me.” His jaw tightened and he locked her eyes with his. “We’re not goin’ in blind this time around. We know what to watch out for—we c’n stop it before it gets too bad.”

She laughed again and patted his cheek. “That’s sweet, dear heart. That’s not how it works, but that’s sweet.”

“No, Katherine,” he said, his voice sharp.  _“Listen_  to me. We’re gonna go to your father tomorrow and explain things. We’re gonna get you on the book review beat so you c’n keep writing and publishing even if you gets put on bed rest. We’re gonna get a written guarantee that your job at _The World_ 'll be waitin’ for you after the birth, no matter how long it takes until you’re ready to go back.” He gripped her even more tightly and raised his eyebrows until she nodded. “Okay. An’ this time I’m gonna be there for the whole birth. Start ta finish. Right by your side. An' I'm gonna do better about bein’ home after the baby comes, too. I’ll go in to get my assignments, come home an’ draw ‘em, an’ get ‘em back ta the office by the end of the day. I'm gonna do that as many days a week as Norton lets me. An' if he don't cooperate? I'll call your pops an' make him bully Norton inta it. I mean that." He squeezed her shoulders. "I'm gonna be there for ya, Ace. I promise. I’m gonna be home mosta the week for however long you’s stayin’ at home, okay? You got that?”

She nodded again, her heart starting to lift a little.

“Good. An’  _this_  time, angel,  _this_  time we’s gonna call in the cavalry. For real. This time you’re gonna get a day all to yourself every week, one day a week without any kids—I don’t care how young the baby is, we’re gonna ship ‘em both off ta your parents, ta Crutchie an’ Rosie, ta Davey an’ Chaya, ta Darcy an’ Annie, ta Race’n Spot, ta Sarah an’ Avram—you’re gonna have one day all ta yourself ev’ry single week—with me or without me, your choice—so’s you c’n breathe. Alright?”

She broke into a wide smile. “Oh, Jackie.”

“An’ this time,” he continued, “ _This_  time we’s gonna use formula an’ not see it as a failure. If that’s what needs ta happen, that’s what’s gonna happen. Soon’s you start to feel low about it, we’s switchin’. No second-guessin’ ourselves, no doubts, no regrets.” She frowned slightly, and he held her chin. “It might not happen, but if it does? You’re not a failure. You’re  _never_ a failure.”

She scanned his face, drawing strength from the intensity of his conviction. “Okay,” she said, taking a deep breath.

“Good,” he said, nodding at her. “We’re prepared this time, love, an’ it’s gonna be better. This time we’s gonna talk about things. No shame, no guilt, just here’s how it is an’ how do we solve it. An’ we’ll solve it, okay? ‘Cause we’re a team, you an’ me. We’re a team, an’ we’ll win out.”

“Every time,” she said, smiling and pulling him in for a hug.

“For sure?” He said, adding the next line in the ritual.

“For sure.”

**Author's Note:**

> Nicholas Luke is born September 1911 :)


End file.
